[Jim Moonan]

rv.2
.
Feast of The Holy Family

Truth: I always took her side. She always lost.
She's cry in the kitchen after dinner dishes
then disappear upstairs to the guest room and cry more.
I would listen at the door and beg, "Mom can you stop?
Please stop." But she couldn't.

Years later and now I’ve fallen surreptitiously
in love with a woman half my age who sings
in St. Cecilia's choir and bears strange resemblance
to my mother, who sang show tunes to me
but looked somewhere far away as she did.
I watch her dark eyes lifting and falling,
her long, swirl of dark hair falling.
her mouth opening, my mouth mouthing,
I am love again.

Come home to me on this feast day,
Holy Family of mine. Come home.
Our song and my crying ache to be one.
Find my ear fast, before my crying is done.




----------
rv1
Feast of The Holy Family

Truth: I always took her side.
After dinner in our dark house
she'd disappear into the guest room.
I would hear her as she cried
and sometimes I came to the closed door:
"Are you alright, Mom?
Can you stop crying? Please stop."
It always seemed to make her sob more.

I’ve fallen in love with a woman half my age
who sings in the choir, looks like my mother,
sings like my mother, who sung to me.
I watch her eyes lifting and falling, her long,
swirl of dark hair falling. her mouth opening in song,
my mouth mouthing, I am love, I am love.

My family, uprooted family, broken family
I am always walking away from, come home
to me on this feast day of The Holy Family.
Speak to me words that breathe life into
my sickness, my blood, my soul. My song
and my scream ache to be one sound
of water falling, of voices gurgling, slipping
over smoothed river stone, finding my ear
even though the sung words are drowned.


Original
Holy Family

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Nobody's perfect!
I always took her side.
Most nights in our dark house
I could hear her as she cried martyr's tears
in the guest room. The sound swarmed my heart
and swallowed my soul. But my soul survived.

Holy family. Broken family.

I’ve come so far; it's been so long; I still sin.
I’ve fallen in love with a woman half my age who sings in
the choir. I watch her eyes lifting and falling, her long,
swirling dark hair falling over her breasts. My mouth,
falling open, mouths, I am love, I am love.

On this feast day of the Holy Family The congregation
stayed until the singing stopped. The organist continued on
as they filed from the pews, his fingers fluttering over the keys,
all stops pulled, the pedals under his feet throbbing
to be heard, searching for perfect thunder and light.

Holy family. Broken family.

Do me no favors. I wander the world
forever walking away from the sound
of spoken words that tried to take
my breath away. I go away and away.
My sickness and my health are one.
What I have done and failed to do are one.
My song and my scream are one.
Water streams like the voices echoing
against the marble stone, finding my ear
even though the words are broken.


.